


in the city of tears lies the city ghost

by o_aphrodite



Series: Krewe des Souris Chaudes [2]
Category: Batwoman (Comic), DCU (Comics), Detective Comics (Comics), Harley Quinn (Comics), Huntress (Comics), Zatanna (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Mental Health Issues, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Personal Growth, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Private Investigators, Psychologist Harley Quinn, Recovery, Setting - New Orleans, Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:14:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25387363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/o_aphrodite/pseuds/o_aphrodite
Summary: Helena, Kate, and Zatanna begin a private investigation firm in New Orleans. Harley and Ivy seek their services.an au set in New Orleans. the series updates on sundays.
Relationships: Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel
Series: Krewe des Souris Chaudes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1816873
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	in the city of tears lies the city ghost

**Author's Note:**

> This work takes place in the same continuity and time frame as 'where the good and righteous walk' (by staymonkey)

Zatanna had, for the first time in her brief but busy life, settled into a routine. She still performed stage magic, but only on weekends and the occasional holiday. She still consulted with the Justice League, but she did so remotely, and the services she offered were limited. She still managed her trademark, but she’d outsourced most of the grunt work to the same law firm that filed Wayne Enterprise’s patents. She still spoke to Bruce, but only because they hadn’t agreed that they weren’t speaking.

She hadn’t intended to separate so thoroughly when she chose to relocate from San Francisco to New Orleans, but the city cast something of a spell on her. The sleepiness of it (or maybe just the humidity, or perhaps it was the greasier food, or even just the easy grins of her neighbors when they greeted her from their porches) created something akin to a liminal space. The city itself seemed to compel its denizens to slow down, to savor, to sink into self-indulgence.

Further, she never knew just how many of her relationships with members of the Justice League were predicated on her magic rather than her company until she was no longer on call to wipe memories or violate the laws of physics. There wasn’t any bitterness to the realization that many of her friends were actually just coworkers, but she couldn’t tamp the sense of relief she felt the first day she managed an entire 24 hours without being asked to violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

She’d thought the abuses she’d performed with magic hadn’t bothered her when, actually, she’d been too tired to recognize the erosion of her own morality. But now, wrapped in a haze of Southern charm in the Crescent City, she’d finally found rest and, with rest, boundaries.

Boundaries were still very new, and she’d even sought professional help with exploring that newness.

“They don’t come overnight, boundaries are _learned_ ,” Harley had told her when Zatanna had sought her out for advice. Harley was an accomplished psychotherapist, after all, even if her career took an unexpected turn. She was also the only psychotherapist Zatanna knew, and she’d helped Zatanna the last time Constantine swept through her life like the hurricane that he couldn’t help but be. “They’re practiced. And you’re gonna fuck them up sometimes, that’s just part of it. They’re also _highly_ personalized; what works for me with Mistah J isn’t gonna work for you and Batsy.”

“Batman isn’t my problem,” Zatanna had retorted. “Not any more than the rest of the Justice League.”

Harley’s expression had softened into a patronizingly sympathetic smile that only deepened Zatanna’s pout. “Did you two ever talk? About what happened after ya fucked with his memories like that?”

“I did what was asked of me, what he’d told me to do to other people,” Zatanna had retorted.

“So, no,” Harley had said simply.

“No,” Zatanna had muttered. “We never talked about it. He was icy and then he started calling me to help in Gotham again. That’s as much forgiveness as any, you know how he is about Gotham.”

“He thinks he owns the place,” Harley had snorted. “And he can have that shitshow for all I care, nothin’ but bad memories. But you’re more than what you can offer the capes, Zee. It took me a while to learn it too, but friends don’t put up with you because of what you can do for ‘em. That’s a thing bosses, coworkers, narcissists, and sociopaths do. So, which one is Bats?”

After that, Harley had prescribed grand theft auto and arson, as well as a few mindfulness exercises. Zatanna politely declined the grand theft auto and arson. 

And so, Zatanna tried to build mindfulness into her day, even if she occasionally felt silly.

She walked, now, instead of magically transporting herself, because it allowed her to wrestle her busy mind into something resembling introspection. She stopped by a coffee shop each morning, because she liked the baristas and because she’d never had chicory in her iced latte before New Orleans, and now she didn’t know how to function without it. She stopped and smelled the confederate jasmine that lined the outside of her shotgun office because it smelled nice, and she’d never thought to wear perfume regularly, but maybe she would start.

As she carefully stepped up the stairs of her office’s sagging porch, she caught herself thinking about things such as the cost of replacing the decaying wood and the trouble it’d be if someone’s foot fell right through.

There her thoughts went, escaping her again, and so she took a deep breath to recommit herself to her mindfulness exercise. She even paused to appreciate the etched glass window of her office’s front door, which proudly declared announced ZATARA INVESTIGATIONS. When she swung open the door, she mulled over how the chipped paint on the doorframe curled away from the wood. Her heels clicked as she stepped onto the vinyl plank floor, and she closed her eyes to contemplate on the sound.

And then, when she opened her eyes again to find Dick Grayson perched atop the flea market mahogany reception desk in the entrance to the office, she contemplated magicking him into the Ninth Circle of hell.

* * *

Helena woke up with a throbbing headache, which meant it’d been one of _those_ nights.

Sure enough, there was a pale arm slung across her middle and the sting of cologne on the roof of her mouth. Across the room, the wall clock that Dinah had made from a Laura Pausini vinyl record ticked, and Helena breathed with the sound. It was just after six a.m., and the gray light filtering past her gauzy curtains cast a mellow glow in her small bedroom.

Next to her, Kate shifted.

Helena doubted Kate had gotten much sleep, not if she’d slipped into Helena’s bed during another one of Helena’s episodes, but very little slipped past Kate.

“Y’ur awake,” Kate yawned into Helena’s hair. “How’re you feeling?”

Helena huffed. “I’m feeling like I’m not your problem.”

Kate only snorted before untangling from Helena to stretch and yawn. She rolled out of bed and wandered to the bathroom, while Helena watched and tried to tamp down the warm, sugary guilt that tightened her chest.

It had been four months since Helena had first consolidated, and then dismantled the mafia. Four months since she’d avenged her mother, brother, father, and, most importantly: herself. Four months since she’d killed the last head of the last family.

Four months since Bruce told her to get the hell out of Gotham. Four months since Kate had argued with him until storming from the Manor with Helena tucked underneath her arm. Four months since the girls had cried and asked them not to go. Four months since Jason had shouted at them to try harder, to operate in Gotham anyway, to stay.

Oh _god_ , how Helena felt their frustration. Their hurt, their loss, their confusion. She took the very best parts of that city, allowed them to love her, and then she’d pried their fingers from her skirts like so many people before her.

She’d sheltered them, and then she’d left them. They asked Helena to stay, and in doing so, they’d asked, ‘aren’t we enough?’ And she’d answered, ‘No.’

What they didn’t understand was that Bruce didn’t evict Helena; he may have tried if given the opportunity, but he was only one man. What was one man to _l’angelo della morte_?

No, it wasn’t Bruce, not really. Once the dust settled, Helena _couldn’t_ stay. Not after what she’d done.

But the girls wouldn’t understand, and of all of Helena’s confessions, this was the one she couldn’t bear to give. How could they understand the _depth_ of her emptiness? The loss of her sense of self? She was so thoroughly stripped of purpose, of self, of salvation. She’d thought herself a vengeful angel of God when all she’d been was a scared little girl hiding behind anger. And now? She didn’t even have _that_. There was nothing. 

Loving those girls was the cruelest act of Helena’s very cruel life, and she wouldn’t have any more of it.

So, she left. And, despite her insistence that this was hers alone to bear, Kate had followed. Helena had tried to argue, but Kate argued back. She’d even gone so far as to collect a slew of Bible verses in support of her argument, and far be it from Helena to argue with the Word of God.

(And maybe it was because Helena was a hypocrite, and selfish, and wrong, but she couldn’t bear to turn Kate away, not if Kate insisted on coming along.)

Now, four months later, they were in New Orleans, on the urging of Zatanna, who promised them work and company as they sorted their affairs. Four months later, and Helena couldn’t sleep at night without Kate coming into her room and holding her through her insomnia, sleep paralysis, and night terrors. Four months later, and Helena still felt as hopeless and lost as she had the moment that last crossbow bolt sought refuge in that last man’s skull.

Helena waited until she could hear Kate start the shower, and then she cried. 

* * *

“It happened again,” Kate murmured lowly, her phone pressed to one hear and a hand against the other to mute the din of the shower. “She still won’t talk to me about it, I don’t know what to do.”

“Nothing to do, really,” Harley yawned from the other end of the line. Kate would be sorry for waking her, if her worry for Helena weren’t so consuming. “You can’t make her talk to you, and it’s not healthy to try.”

“I’m not trying to _make_ her do anything,” Kate hissed. “I just _want_ her to be okay—” 

“You ever hear of codependency?” Harley interrupted. “It’s a doozy, and I don’t recommend it. You can’t fix people, you’ve just gotta try and be there for them. Like me an’ Red. She couldn’t _make_ me get over Mistah J, but she was there when I was ready to leave.”

Kate chewed her lip. “We’re not like you and Red either, Harley. It’s not—we’re just friends—”

“Same goes for friends,” Harley said sternly. “Codependency can happen in any relationship. The fact remains, you gotta give her time. Is she workin’ yet? People like her benefit from somethin’ to do.”

“No,” Kate said, hopping up to sit on the bathroom sink. The house was already so humid, and the bathroom was such a tight, enclosed space that it was suffocating there in particular, but she couldn’t risk being overheard. “She comes around to the office sometimes, but she just sort of hangs out. And even when she’s there, she’s not always _there_ , you know?”

“I can’t diagnose her without speaking to her,” Harley said. “But I’ve got an idea. Lemme see what I can do, okay?”

“Wait, what—” Kate began, but Harley ended the call.

For a moment, Kate worried over what Harley might do. If Helena discovered Kate was speaking to a not-so-licensed therapist about Helena’s moods and sleep dysfunction, private things that only Kate knew, she may take it badly. But if Kate said nothing… Kate hadn’t spoken much about her own mental health after she’d left West Point. In the aftermath, there were entire months she couldn’t remember at all. It wasn’t just the drinking either; even while sober, Kate carried a fog like a funeral shroud.

It was vigilantism that grounded Kate again, but it was vigilantism that hurt Helena so badly. Kate was out of her element; she needed help. And if that meant violating Helena’s trust, then Kate would do it: again, and again, until Helena returned to herself.

Kate set her phone aside and showered. She scrubbed her skin near raw and did not leave until she was sure she could hold her composure. But by the time Kate entered the kitchen, dressed but for the towel around her hair, Helena was upright, also dressed, and drinking espresso at their kitchen island. There was a small pile of discarded boxes beside her, but that was often the case as of late. 

“Are you coming in today?” Kate asked, unable to swallow her hope over Helena wearing pants. “The office is beginning to look put together. Zatanna bought a snake plant, and it hasn’t even died yet.”

“Yeah,” Helena murmured. “I was thinking about it. I told Zatanna we could look at office furniture together.”

“Please do,” Kate muttered. “I’m getting tired of looking at that desk she has in the front room.”

Kate grabbed a mug from the drying rack but froze when she reached for the coffee canister. Her simple, candy red, 4-cup coffee maker, which should have been beside the canister, had been replaced with a startling, multi-levered, several-buttoned, silver contraption. There wasn’t even a carafe.

“Uh,” Kate said.

“It’s an espresso machine,” Helena clarified. “It’s new.”

Kate nodded. “Oh, okay.” Kate paused, and then added, “I thought you already had an espresso machine?”

“Yes,” Helena said. “But this one’s new. It arrived while you were in the shower; I ordered it a few days ago.”

“Oh, okay,” Kate said, her voice pitched. Helena had bought the _old_ espresso machine only two weeks prior.

Kate hovered over the complicated machine until Helena slid from her chair and wandered over to help.

“Americano?” she asked. Kate couldn’t remember what an Americano was, but she nodded and watched curiously as Helena ground the beans (Kate didn’t even know they _had_ whole coffee beans) and made the drink. When it was finished, Kate remembered that she liked Americanos, and she decided there were worse things than Helena developing a coffee hobby.

Helena could afford it. Her sweep through Gotham’s mafia may have left her lost, but it made her wealthy.

They went to the office on Kate’s bike, and Kate decided it was good that Helena didn’t bring her own. It could be she didn’t have the energy to drive, or it could just be that she anticipated spending the entire day at the office, which hadn’t happened in weeks.

It was good. Kate felt good.

That is until she walked stepped into the office and saw Dick Grayson.

* * *

“Helena don’t—” Kate began, but it was too late. Helena had stepped in behind her.

Helena’s chest tightened when she saw Dick Grayson, so much so that she thought her ribs might crack.

* * *

Zatanna cursed. This was so very much not what she needed right now.

“Dick, you should leave,” she said. Dick’s eyebrows were furrowed, and his eyes flickered from Zatanna to Kate to Helena.

“I will, I’ll leave. I just wanted to let you know I would be in town for a while. With Rose Wilson, she asked me to train her again,” Dick said. “It’s a small town, I thought it would be better if I told you before you found out on your own.” 

Helena was breathing too hard, and Kate had crossed her arms and stepped in front of Helena as if to shield her (despite being two inches shorter). Despite all of her attempts towards mindfulness, Zatanna began mentally constructing a spell to toss Dick out onto the street.

“Next time, text me,” Zatanna said, her voice carefully level. “You have no business just showing up here unannounced.”

‘You’re unraveling weeks of progress,’ Zatanna wanted to shout. ‘You’re acting just like your father, and it’s not okay,’ she wanted to say. ‘Learn some fucking boundaries,’ she wanted to add. 

She didn’t say any of those things, but she would be calling Harley later. (And maybe she would look up other, licensed therapists while she was at it. She couldn’t force Harley into a role that Harley left.)

Dick blinked at her. “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t—” he looked around himself and winced. “Yeah. Sorry. I’ll talk to you later, Zee. Kate, Helena.”

He stood up to walk out, and Kate stepped aside to let him pass. But Helena didn’t. She didn’t speak either, even though Dick stopped in front of her to give her the opportunity. Finally, either overwhelmed by the awkwardness or finally registering how deeply unwanted he was, Dick walked around her and left the building.

When he did, Zatanna, Kate, and Helena breathed.

“They’re everywhere,” Kate huffed. “Everywhere we go, damn, there’s a Bat.”

Helena rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I have a headache,” she announced.

“There’s ibuprofen in the bathroom,” Zatanna offered. “It’ll be okay. He was trying to be courteous; he just doesn’t know how to act.”

“That’s a Gothamite for you,” Helena said over her shoulder, as she strode to the bathroom. She slammed the door shut behind her, and Zatanna could hear the lock slide into place.

“This wasn’t how today was supposed to go,” Kate muttered, scrubbing her face with her hands. “I brought her because I thought work would make her feel a bit more like herself. I didn’t expect her ex to be lounging around.”

“Neither did I,” Zatanna huffed. “I’ll see to it he doesn’t come back uninvited.”

Just then, the door swung open. Fully expecting Dick, Zatanna opened her mouth to shout a spell at him, only to stutter when Harley and Ivy waltzed in. They were dressed in matching large, wide-brimmed sunhats and cat-eyed sunglasses. Harley’s red-painted lips curled up in a mischievous smile.

“We’ve come to report a terrible crime,” Harley cooed.


End file.
